Wanderlust

The urge to move is itching me,
The highway sings a song.
I’ve got the wanderlust so bad
My whole life just looks wrong,
But deep inside my soul I know
To go won’t change a thing.
My enemy’s inside my brain
And that’s the real sting.
‘Cause you can run around the world,
No matter what you find,
And even at the speed of light
You’re trapped inside your mind.
But still I’m full of wanderlust –
The far hills look so green,
And maybe in another place
The people won’t be mean.
The highway sings its siren song,
The only words I trust:
I won’t return if I give in
Just once to wanderlust.

Sometimes I’ll just be glancing round
To see what’s there to see;
My eyes will fix upon a man
And unexpectedly
The sight gives me a hot, sharp pang
That hits and moves straight down.
It seems to make no difference if
His hair's red, gold, or brown.
Can’t really say what catches me,
The way he moves perhaps,
Or humor in a pair of eyes
That sparkle when he laughs.
Intelligence gets to me, too –
The dumb ones make me yawn.
Yes, strength is sexy, goodness knows,
But humor beats out brawn.
These crushes never last too long,
They singe me then they fade.
My lust has wandered near and far
But never has it stayed.

A TALE OF THREE TOMCATS

Come little children and sit by my knee;

I’ll tell you a tale of my tomcats three.

First there is Bandit, my shy Siamee;

Then Muffin, the tiger, all orange and white;

Lastly there’s loverboy, black Starry Night.

When I got three I made one oversight.

 

If one can’t find mischief, the other two can.

They sail past my fragiles like a catamaran.

They’re making a fuzz-ball of my new divan.

Star chews my hair while he purrs oh so loud,

Bandit does yodeling while pacing around,

And Muffin picks fights with the whole naughty crowd.

 

Bandit sheds cream on the dark brown stuffed chair.

Star likes the white chair to leave his black hair.

My blazer of blue looks like orange mohair.

Yet sometimes, when Muffin curls up by my knees,

And loverboy purrs without even a please,

And soft murrows come from that loud Siamese,

I know bad things and good things both come in threes.

 

 

Written in 1981, about the three cats I had in my first apartment. They were a lot of fun and aggravation.

 

 

My cousin Rocky

My cousin Rocky is facing terminal cancer, and with his usual wry humor has started a blog titled Terminal Velocity. What he calls his ramblings could easily be collected into a book. They're very good. The situation with him breaks my heart. My handsome younger cousin, after having disfiguring surgery on his face to try to save his life, had the cancer recur before they finished reconstructing his jaw. They'll do no more reconstruction, so he'll spend this last year unable to swallow let alone eat. He's relearning how to talk. He has no teeth, a partial jaw, no salivary glands, no soft palate. When he vomits - which is often - it comes out his nose as well. Can't be helped. Has a tracheotomy.

I was glad he at least still can ride his motorcycle, though his leg is weak - evidently that's where they took the bone to remake his jaw. He has to be more careful, but can still do it. He was a classic extrovert. Lived his life to the hilt with no regrets and beholden to no one.

What brought him down? Smoking.

After my Dad died of the side effects of smoking, I wanted to hire a plane and bomb all tobacco farms out of existence. Now, I look at young people smoking and want to slap them. Dad started before the tobacco companies admitted their product was poisonous. Now we all know. So why do people start smoking? It makes you stink, it makes you wrinkle young, it damages your health and might even kill you. Oooh, hold me back.

A lot are going with those electronic cigarettes in the mistaken notion that they're safer. Yeah, just like tanning beds are 'safer' than the sun. Tanning beds still give you melanoma, and electronic cigarettes are still dispensing poisons, toxins, and carcinogens deep into your body. The only safe suntan is a spray-on tan, and the only safe cigarette is a candy one.

To those who say, well, you've got to die of something, I say, But why pick that? It takes ages, it's expensive, and chemo, radiation, and surgery are very bad experiences. Painful, sickening, horrendous experiences that take away parts of your life you loved.

Rocky, age 18.

                                                Rocky, age 51, after smoking for decades.

Is this really the death you would choose? Because you can choose not to.